A group of youths under the banner, Earth Day Network (EDN), embarked on a drive to replace incandescent bulbs with LED bulbs along the pavement of Asutosh Mukherjee Road on Wednesday. The act made a lot of difference — one LED bulb consumes less than 5% the energy consumed by incandescent bulbs and generates negligible heat.
“Our idea was to do something to fight the climate challenges in our small way,” said Ajay Mittal, director, EDN, India and South Asia. “We replaced 200W bulbs with 14W LED bulbs and made the hawkers pledge to switch to LED. We explained to them the benefits of using LED — both in terms of electricity cost and longevity. In run up to the 50th anniversary of Earth Day on April 22, we want everyone to take up a small action for change by challenging themselves to replace at least five filament bulbs with LED bulbs,” he added.
Raja Das, a textile hawker in Bhowanipore, said, “The EDN changed one of my five bulbs and told me how much I can save on my electricity bill by shifting to LED. The illumination of the LED lamp is quite good and I have promised to change all my filament bulbs into LED lamps.”
Earlier, Mittal and his friends, in their personal capacity, took upon the task of installing PVC ball valves on road-side taps to stop free-flow of potable water. That saved gallons from being wasted. “We pooled in money to replace filament bulbs and hope the corporate social responsibility fund will aid with the mass-scale replacement,” Mittal added.
Energy efficiency assumes significance in the current environment of shortages and concerns over climate change. The Indian government had launched a scheme to provide LED bulbs to domestic consumers while the KMC has started replacing incandescent street lamps with LED ones.
Source: Times of India
